Cincinnati, a new home
9/14/25 - moving on up
I have been in this city for about a month now, and it is a good city, there is no denying that, the architecture is lovely, it's got significantly better walkability, housing diversity and transit than cities near it like Louisville, Lexington or Indy, and there are an incredible amount of local shops. I am here for Uni as we all know, and I am enjoying that, even if the deadlines seem to be creeping up on me.
The main neighborhoods I have visited so far since moving here have been Covington, Correyville, Clifton, CUF, Hyde Park, Over the Rhine (OTR), Downtown, and Avondale. One thing I really am enjoying is the distinctiveness between neighborhoods, OTR feels right out of 1920s NYC even if she is a bit gentrified now, CUF feels so homey with its compact homes and narrow streets, Avondale, Covington feels so historic with its old German Architecture, Clifton feels very well to do and victorian which is always neat, and the Downtown is also really great, its a proper city there, like Chicago, but less full of people sadly. honestly the diversity of neighborhoods really reminds of of Chicago with how all the various neighborhoods come together to create a larger whole. I love it, becasue just walking through Burnett woods takes you to a whole different city which is really cool.
Its an older city, Cincy, which I really love but it still has many nice modern amenities that you actually don't see in a lot of US cities, like the streetcar, sorry Connector (that name stinks), which is thankfully free, so very handy when downtown, even if it should have gone up the hill, and the planned actually good BRT routes that will take advantage of the numerous unnessesarily wide roads here. The busses actually have been a major perk of this city since my uni provides a free bus pass and the times for busses can be seen easily due to the transit app. I do have to complain about the fact the app is how the pass is distributed and not a card, ala the Oyster in London, which is a lot less fun to me and has cut many a trip of mine short due to my phone being almost dead and needing abus back.
If I were to find one thing to complain about here, it is the economic inequality between neighborhoods, its really bad, sadly, if you compare a place like Clifton to say Avondale, the difference is stark in terms of things like businesses and density and pretty much every good metric. I think the city has a ton of potential, its just not meeting it yet. and I worry that efforts to revitalise and bring investment back into neighborhoods like Avondale, Correyville, or even OTR will displace people, which might already be happening to an extent, particularly in OTR and Correyville due tot he growth of the University of Cincinnati and the Streetcar both pushing investment with seemingly little regard for community. I feel that a city is a cultural patchwork and to truly meet the needs of its inhabitants, they can't allow their growth to be controlled by developers and monied groups like large universities, look at Harlem and how it has been destroyed by Columbia University, which that fucking disaster of a Uni could and should be its own blog post with how they have destroyed community and kowtowed to fascism.
And.. I may have gotten side tracked there, sorry! all in all, I love Cincy so far but worry about her future
